Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Reading Skill Review

I don't know about you, but I absolutely love coming back to my classroom in January. By this point in the year, our routines are solid, and it is a great time to really dig in to content.

By second semester, I have usually taught most of the reading skills in isolation, so this is the point in the year when I can really dig in deep and apply those skills to our novels. (You can read more about when and how I teach reading skills in this blog post. )

Even though second semester is always full of novel study, I still find that my students need a bit of review about all those different skills that we have worked on, especially with state testing coming up. I have blogged many times before about how I review reading comprehension, and I'll link to those posts at the bottom of this post. But today, I have a couple of new ideas for you!

While I explicitly teach all of our reading skills and we review them at length, there is something to be said about the students knowing exactly what each of the reading skills is asking them to do. I cringe when I see students struggling on tests because they can't remember the difference between a text feature and text structure or what exactly they are looking for when prompted for a theme vs. a main idea.

This year, I created a fun review activity to help my students revisit all of the different reading skills.

With this little game, the students have to find the definition for the reading skill AND match the key word/examples to the reading skill. It's a fun, quick way to review all of these different ideas with students! I like to use this type of activity in a small group setting so that we can discuss the different definitions and key words.

I printed the two boards out and laminated them so that I could use them with multiple groups. Then, I printed the definitions on one color and the Key Word/Samples on another color. I cut velcro squares in half and put them on the boards and the backs of the definition/samples. Super easy!

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Year after year, I have searched and searched for a great way to incorporate a daily review of all of these skills. I never found anything that fit the bill and was super engaging for my students. Most of what I found looked the same as what I already had-- long passages followed by multiple choice questions or open-ended answers. So, I decided to create it this year, and I'm so tickled with how it came out!! Introducing... the Reading Skill of the Day Weekly Journal!

I began by looking at all of the different reading skills I needed to incorporate... I knew that Main Idea and Inference were skills that I wanted to cover every single week, so Main Idea Monday and Inference Wednesday were born! The rest of the skills (and the sequence in which they appear in the resource) can be seen in the calendar below.

Each week covers a new skill in a fun and engaging way for students. The variation in skill practice allows them to see the skills differently and get oodles of valuable reading practice. Best of all, almost all of the tasks can be completed in five minutes or less, making this a super easy resource to incorporate into your literacy block.

Each week also includes a bonus activity for your early finishers and as another learning engagement to keep your kiddos excited about reading!

There are twenty weeks total, and you can use them in so many ways. You can bind or staple them all together, put them in a folder or binder, or distribute a single page (front and back) each week. Here are a few ways you can use the Daily Reading Skill Review journal:

Morning Work

Literacy Block Warm Up

Small Group Review

Whole Class Daily Review

Daily Homework

Intervention

...and so much more!

If you'd like to see even more about this journal, please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking HERE!

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